Ew! Jackson thinks birth defects are caused by sin.

Two families with children suffering from birth defects wrote an open letter to E.W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, criticizing him for comments in his book “Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life,” that allege birth defects are the consequence of sin. The letter will be mailed Tuesday.

“As parents of children born with disabilities, it is offensive and disturbing to imply that our children are somehow a punishment. As someone seeking to serve in public office, you owe an apology for this baseless mischaracterization of Virginia children to thousands of families across the commonwealth,” says the letter, which was signed by Dorothea Hampton of Newport News and Neil and Sarelle Holliday of Norfolk, the Senate district of Jackson’s Democratic rival, Sen. Ralph S. Northam.

In his 2008 book, Jackson wrote that “it is the principle of sin, rebellion against God and His truth, which has brought about birth defects and other destructive natural occurences.”

The two families call Jackson’s ideology “nothing other than destructive and extreme. All of Virginia’s families deserve to be treated with respect, but your claim that sin is the cause if birth defects severely undermines this reality.

2. Also said Planned Parenthood has done more to hurt blacks than the Ku Klux Klan

Virginia’s newly minted Republican lieutenant governor nominee E.W. Jackson says his faith and values inform his conservative stances on issues such as abortion and marriage — and some of his past statements critics are now highlighting as extreme and offensive.

“I say the things that I say because I’m a Christian, not because I hate anybody, but because I have religious values that matter to me,” Jackson told reporters at a campaign stop in Fredericksburg. “Attacking me because I hold to those principles is attacking every church-going person, every family that’s living a traditional family life, everybody who believes that we all deserve the right to live. So I don’t have anything to rephrase or apologize for. I would just say people should not paint me as one-dimensional.”

Jackson, a virtual unknown who has never held public office, has grabbed headlines in recent days as Democrats immediately seized on his past comments on abortion, race and homosexuality. He suggested that Planned Parenthood has done more to hurt blacks than the Ku Klux Klan and called gays and lesbians “perverted” and “very sick people.”

The Chesapeake minister, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate last year, defeated six other candidates Saturday at the Republican Party of Virginia’s state convention to become the party’s first African American nominee for statewide office since 1988. Also on the GOP statewide ticket are gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli II and attorney general nominee Mark D. Obenshain.

4. Where's the outrage....

5. WOW.

I knew he was bad, but this statement is beyond bizarre. Luckily, the Dem candidate, Ralph Northam (http://www.northamforlg.com/), is a reality-based candidate, and a physician to boot, so he should be able to offer a compelling rebuttal. Northam has a strong record on women's issues (he saved VA from the worst of the outrageous vaginal ultrasound issue) and on the environment, both of which topics are of close relevance to Jackson's latest ravings.

9. He beat you to it

Jackson attempted to clarify these lines in his book during a news conference in June, where he said that he doesn’t believe that birth defects are caused by parents’ sin, “unless, of course, there’s a direct scientific connection between the parents’ behavior and the disabilities of the child,” he said, giving the example of birth defects that might result from a child born to a mother addicted to heroin.

27. Trephining

11. A lot of people believe as he does.

Imagine, if you can, that you're a nice, church-going, Bible-believing person. You do your very best to live a good life, to be a good person the way you understand you should be. You perhaps tithe to your church. You're kind to your neighbors. And so on. Then, oh happy day, a baby is born. Soon after birth you learn there is something wrong with your baby. All along your church has told you that only wicked sinners have children with birth defects. So you must have sinned, and now everyone knows it.

Okay, so all of you reading this do not buy into that at all. But many people do, and that's as much sad as it is scary. It's almost impossible to reach out to those people, because they live in a very closed world. There's no understanding of science, first off. Nothing about biology, heredity, or random chance.

To me, it would be much worse to be that kind of a person of that sort of faith, and then have something as terrible as a child with a birth defect, than it is to be a person of science (who happens to hold certain spiritual beliefs although they're not important here) who understands that I'm not responsible for my child's birth defect.

13. Ewwwwwwwww

14. That is one sick Fuck right there...

Its heartbreaking when any child is born with a birth defect - the last thing on earth we need is someone attaching guilt to the parents. but then - but that's what organized religion is good at, Guilt.

30. What does that mean?

This bible story appears to be specific for that one particular blind man so that Jesus could make a point about doing good deeds on the sabbath.

What about all the other blind people?
Jesus hasn't healed them.

It was the original sin that Adam and Eve committed that let Satan into the world, so according to many mainline Christian factions it is because of this that humans are not perfect and subject to the negative consequences of sin.